CenterMessage

Centers chat messages. Mix legacy & and §, hex &#RRGGBB, Spigot hex §x§R§R§G§G§B§B and MiniMessage tags in the same string: color codes never push the text off center, only visible glyphs count toward the padding. Static facade, no onEnable hook, no config files.


Minecraft	`1.16+`
Java	`8` bytecode
Platforms	Spigot, Paper, Folia, BungeeCord, Velocity
Author	Senkex
Source	senkex/CenterMessage

The centering engine is dependency free. Legacy and hex input is measured and padded with pure java.*, so CenterMessage.center(...) runs with nothing on the classpath. Adventure and MiniMessage load lazily, only when you use a tag or the Component API.

Relocate the package when you bundle it. Two plugins shading different versions of com.github.senkex.centermessage will clash on the classpath. See Shading.

Install

Gradle (Kotlin)

build.gradle.kts


repositories {
    maven("https://jitpack.io")
}
 
dependencies {
    implementation("com.github.senkex:CenterMessage:version")
}

Gradle (Groovy)

build.gradle


repositories {
    maven { url 'https://jitpack.io' }
}
 
dependencies {
    implementation 'com.github.senkex:CenterMessage:version'
}

Maven

pom.xml


<repository>
    <id>jitpack.io</id>
    <url>https://jitpack.io</url>
</repository>
 
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.github.senkex</groupId>
    <artifactId>CenterMessage</artifactId>
    <version>version</version>
</dependency>

Bukkit, PlaceholderAPI and Adventure are compileOnly. They are not transitive and never reach your POM.

Feature	Needs at runtime
`CenterMessage`, `CenterHead`, `CenterOptions`	nothing, pure `java.*`
MiniMessage tags, `CenterMessageComponents`	`adventure-api`, `adventure-text-minimessage`, `adventure-text-serializer-legacy`
`CenterMessageBukkit`	the Spigot or Paper server it runs on
PlaceholderAPI expansion	PlaceholderAPI installed, resolved lazily

Paper and Velocity ship Adventure. On Spigot and BungeeCord, shade the matching adventure-platform-* bridge yourself.

Usage

The zero dependency core. It never touches Adventure, so it works everywhere.


String line = CenterMessage.center("&#FF55AA Centered &ltext");
player.sendMessage(line);

Multi line and <center> blocks are string level too.


String block = CenterMessage.processCenterTags(
        "<center>&6&lWelcome</center>\n" +
        "&7Use /help to see commands.\n" +
        "<center>&7Have fun.</center>");

Components and audiences

CenterMessageComponents is the only class that pulls in Adventure, loaded lazily. Use it for Component results, hover and click decoration, or sending straight to an Audience.


CenterMessageComponents.send(audience, "&aHello &b<bold>World</bold>");
 
Component comp = CenterMessageComponents.centerComponent("<gradient:#f00:#0f0>Hi</gradient>");
player.sendMessage(comp);
 
// Re center an existing component, keeping its click and hover events
Component custom = Component.text("hello").color(NamedTextColor.AQUA);
player.sendMessage(CenterMessageComponents.centerComponent(custom));
 
CenterMessageComponents.sendBlock(audience, "<center>&6&lWelcome</center>\n&7Use /help");

On Bukkit, pass a CommandSender straight into the Bukkit facade. It uses Adventure when the sender supports it and falls back to legacy sendMessage otherwise.


CenterMessageBukkit.send(player, "&aHello &b<bold>World</bold>");
CenterMessageBukkit.sendBlock(player, "<center>&6&lWelcome</center>\n&7Use /help");

Options

The default is chat width, CenterOptions.CHAT, 154 px. For signs, books, holograms or custom UIs, set the half width through the builder.


CenterOptions sign = CenterOptions.builder().centerPx(45).build();
CenterMessage.center("&aTitle", sign);
 
CenterOptions custom = CenterOptions.builder()
        .centerPx(80)
        .parseMiniMessage(false)
        .build();
 
String centered = CenterMessage.center("&aTitle", custom);

Every centering method on CenterMessage, CenterMessageComponents and CenterMessageBukkit takes an optional CenterOptions.

Heads

CenterHead centers a rendered head next to text. It never imports HeadRender: feed it the List<String> that HeadRender.render(...) returns plus the text for each row.


HeadRender.render("Senkex").thenAccept(head -> {
    List<String> text = List.of("", "&fSenkex", "&7VIP", "", "&eCoins: 1200", "", "", "");
 
    // Type 1, everything centered, head included
    CenterHead.card(head, text).forEach(player::sendMessage);
 
    // Type 2, head stays put, text centered beside it
    CenterHead.beside(head, text).forEach(player::sendMessage);
});

Head width is measured through FontInfo.BLOCK_WIDTH, the same value HeadRender uses, so both libraries agree.

PlaceholderAPI

PlaceholderAPI is Bukkit only, so it lives in CenterMessageBukkit. If PAPI is installed, every method there that receives a Player or OfflinePlayer expands placeholders before parsing. No hard dependency is needed.


CenterMessageBukkit.send(player, "&6Balance: &a%vault_eco_balance%");

Colorize

CenterMessage.colorize is a drop in replacement for ChatColor.translateAlternateColorCodes that also understands &#RRGGBB and MiniMessage tags.


String colored = CenterMessage.colorize("&aHello &#FF55AA world <bold>!</bold>");

Notes

Pipeline order: &#RRGGBB, then &x, then legacy to MiniMessage conversion, then MiniMessage parse. Mixing formats in the same string is fine. PlaceholderAPI expansion runs before all of it when going through CenterMessageBukkit.
Width is measured against the vanilla font. Resource packs can override widths with FontInfo.registerWidth(char, int).
Bold is honored end to end. Nested <bold> and legacy §l both add the correct extra pixel per character when measuring.

Migrating from 2.x

In 2.x the facade imported org.bukkit.*, so it could not load on BungeeCord or Velocity. 3.0.0 splits it: CenterMessage keeps every platform neutral method, the Bukkit typed ones moved to CenterMessageBukkit unchanged.

2.x	3.0.0
`CenterMessage.send(CommandSender, ...)`	`CenterMessageBukkit.send(CommandSender, ...)`
`CenterMessage.sendBlock(CommandSender, ...)`	`CenterMessageBukkit.sendBlock(CommandSender, ...)`
`CenterMessage.broadcast(...)`	`CenterMessageBukkit.broadcast(...)`
`CenterMessage.center(String, CenterOptions, OfflinePlayer)`	`CenterMessageBukkit.center(...)`
`CenterMessage.centerComponent(String, CenterOptions, OfflinePlayer)`	`CenterMessageBukkit.centerComponent(...)`
`CenterMessage.parse(String, CenterOptions, OfflinePlayer)`	`CenterMessageBukkit.parse(...)`

The Adventure typed methods moved off CenterMessage as well.

Before	Now
`CenterMessage.centerComponent(...)`	`CenterMessageComponents.centerComponent(...)`
`CenterMessage.parse(...)`	`CenterMessageComponents.parse(...)`
`CenterMessage.send(Audience, ...)`	`CenterMessageComponents.send(Audience, ...)`
`CenterMessage.sendBlock(Audience, ...)`	`CenterMessageComponents.sendBlock(Audience, ...)`

The string methods center, centerLines, processCenterTags, colorize, translateAmp and translateAmpHex keep working untouched, and now work on proxies too.

Shading